


Burning Bright

by jillyfae



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Character Study, Gen, January Jubilation, Project Lazarus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 19:59:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9564062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: From "created" to "creator" .. is it arrogance or bravery to dare to bring someone back to life?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [openended](https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/gifts).



> [_The Tyger_ William Blake (1757 - 1827)](http://www.bartleby.com/101/489.html)

_Tiger, tiger, burning bright_  
_In the forests of the night,_  
_What immortal hand or eye_ _  
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

 

Miranda dreamt of Alchera.

Stars, cold and bright and cruel, gleaming like snowflakes in the night, framing the dark floating remnants of the battle, fragments barely visible as distant sunlight caught sharp ragged edges, reflecting off planet and moon and wreckage, twisted pieces, shards like gnarled branches spinning silently, endlessly, guarding the graves on the planet beneath.

Miranda had resources, charts and pictures and broken disparate recordings scavenged from lost pieces of the _Normandy_ itself, had seen the Collector ship looming beyond a small shift of movement in the darkness, the almost vibrant cloud of exhaust as air escaped, the gleam of heat as a body fell into atmosphere.

Hypoxia, cyanosis, re-entry, _landing._

Would there be enough skin left to see if it was still blue?

Not that that mattered.

Skin was the least of her worries.

Bones and muscles and nerves and organs she could regrow, could put back together. She knew that, could reach a clear and desired conclusion as she listed the steps necessary to fix the body that was due to arrive the next day, no matter how damaged.

A lot of steps, assuredly, but the path was clear and straight, easy enough to walk, easy enough to push Shepard down it.

Easier than her own less literal rebirth, easier than Oriana's freedom.

How to turn a body into _Shepard …_ that was the question that kept her up, turned the shadows in her quarters into nightmares. What to do next if all her plans and projections didn’t work, and all she had was a body, breathing but brain-dead?

Worse yet, what to do next if she succeeded?

 

_In what distant deeps or skies_  
_Burnt the fire of thine eyes?_  
_On what wings dare he aspire?_ _  
What the hand dare seize the fire?_

 

Jacob closed his eyes.

Stalwart steady _Jacob_ made a pained sound in the back of his throat at what was left of Shepard, and Miranda felt her face tighten. She glanced back at him. He lifted his hands in a clear apology and slipped back out of the lab.

This part wasn’t his job. She’d trust him to do his, and he’d leave her to do hers, no matter how little he really thought it was possible.

She ignored the cool whisper in the back of her thoughts, a slow running list of probabilities and set-backs, a clear calculation of the overwhelming likelihood of failure.

It was a useful voice, had saved her life more than once, _saved Oriana,_ but if she had always listened to that voice, she’d still belong to Father.

If she never listened to it, she wouldn't have survived her first job for Cerberus.

_Balance, in all things._

She took a breath, let it out, relaxed shoulders and neck and jaw, made herself remember how to smile, small and secret.

She would not fail.

 

_And what shoulder and what art_  
_Could twist the sinews of thy heart?_  
_And when thy heart began to beat,_ _  
What dread hand and what dread feet?_

 

Its heart was beating.

It was hooked up to every monitor medical science had devised, plus a few extra she’d helped design just for this project, and its oxygenation levels were still low.

But its heart was beating, all on its own.

She hadn’t thought it would, not quite yet; she was going to have to adjust the surgery protocols tomorrow to keep it going. Progress would slow, a little, but the heart starting and stopping would be an added stress on the body. Too much stress. Better to keep it going, now that it had begun.

It was alive.

Not sentient. Not _Shepard._ Not yet.

But closer than most of the team thought they’d get, however calm and sure they attempted to pretend to be whenever Miranda was around.

She snorted softly as she did a quick skim over her personnel reports. There was something off there, somewhere, someone not quite right, but she hadn’t managed to track down all the threads yet.

She should just hand it over to Jacob, that was his job, she had more than enough to do already …

But she couldn’t sleep, and the steady stream of data that _didn’t_ involve bodily fluids and dna models and cybernetic circuitry was soothing.

Not particularly enlightening, but soothing, names and dates and money and ID photos that looked like mugshots (no one had ever figured out a way to take ID photos that actually looked like people) and the occasional actual mugshot thrown in for variety.

It took a questionable background to end up in a lab like this one, no matter how much money The Illusive Man had to entice people to help him, no matter how many people he offered sanctuary, no matter how many times he could point to the Council failing humanity.

Her own past was more than shadowy enough to fit in with the rest, even without a mugshot to illustrate the situation.

Her lips curled into half a smile, sharp and bitter. What a community she had built for herself. Black market scientists and doctors and turncoats. Cozy.

_Still better than the one I was born into._

Hopefully Shepard would forgi --

No.

That wasn't part of the job.

Wasn't needed for the goal.

Bringing Shepard back, showing her the need ... that was enough.

Had to be enough.

Had to be, had to be _different,_ she wasn't just making something to have made it, playing with someone's life because she could, she was helping someone take her life back.

Whether she wanted it or not?

Miranda closed her eyes, shut down her screens by touch.

She was getting maudlin. Even she needed sleep. She'd take another look in the morning.

 

_What the hammer? What the chain?_  
_In what furnace was thy brain?_  
_What the anvil? What dread grasp_ _  
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?_

 

It – _she’d_ – woken up.

Not for long, thank every bit of luck Miranda had ever disdained. But she’d woken up, and there’d been _focus_ behind her eyes, awareness, however sick and dizzy and confused, trying to focus on Miranda’s face, shifting with her voice.

_I’ll have to add more pain medications to the regimen soon._

Sooner than expected.

Again.

Shepard was never what she expected. Her personal logs had been vibrant, emotional. Equally compelling as, but in direct contrast to, the clean clear language in all her military files.

Not that anyone _thought_ like military reports.

Anyone normal, that was, anyone born and bred and raised like a person.

Miranda frowned, an uneasy tug in her chest as she looked over her desk, her lab.

Too much like every other place she’d ever lived.

_A terrible place to be born._

She shook her head, clicked her tongue. It wasn’t like her to indulge in such flights of fancy. Shepard wasn’t a baby in need of nurturing, she was a soldier in need of a second chance.

Miranda was very good at second chances. She’d clawed out one for herself, for Jacob, for Oriana. She could give this one to Shepard, too.

But would Shepard thank her?

Miranda glanced back at the file, the _other one,_ the control chip schematics, the projected window for best integration within the healing nervous system counting down in the corner.

Down, and down, and down.

She had to make a decision.

She didn't want to.

_Not to decide is to decide._

She had made her decision, she just didn't think it was the right one, kept waiting for inspiration, an explanation she could put into her report.

Installing a control chip was the logical choice. Shepard was too important to leave her actions to chance. They _needed_ her.

They needed _her._

Maybe that was reason enough, even for The Illusive Man. Why go to so much effort for Shepard, otherwise? They needed Shepard.

Not just Shepard's body.

That would have been so much easier.

Miranda flicked her fingers, shutting down the count, dismissing the file.

No more second-guessing.

She'd chosen this path, over and over again. She'd walk it until the end.

She stood up, stretched her back with a sigh, and stepped around her desk to go get some more coffee. Only to stop three steps along the way at the familiar double-chime of an urgent message being received at her desk behind her.

She sighed.

Hopefully they'd all last longer than the next week.

 

_When the stars threw down their spears,_  
_And water'd Heaven with their tears,_  
_Did [They] smile [Their] work to see?_ _  
Did [They] who made the lamb make thee?_

She was almost done.

The work was primarily cosmetic, now, building up muscle tissue, re-grafting the final layer of skin, one last calibration between the biological, mechanical, and chemical implants.

Every test Miranda could run gave back positive results.

Well. Every test she could do without a conscious patient.

Which was of course the only test that mattered.

_Is it really Shepard? Is she still who we need her to be?_

Just a little bit longer, and they'd know.

Miranda's hand rested on the edge of the bed, right next to Shepard's head, and she shifted just enough to brush against Shepard's temple, skin warm and still beneath her fingers.

Her eyelashes had finally grown in.

Shepard looked peaceful, even with the lines from her implants still clear beneath her healing skin, dark and red and vicious, following the curve of cheek and jaw and shoulder.

She never looked peaceful in any of her files. Miranda had seen joy, humor, determination, exhaustion. Victories and failures, Shepard had run the whole gamut of experiences, of challenges, _of life._

But never peace.

Something was too tight in Miranda's throat, and she had to concentrate to swallow, to ignore the sudden desire to apologize aloud, even if there was no one here to listen.

Even if there would never be anyone to listen.

Soon.

Soon she'd be done. Soon she'd be awake.

Soon they'd know.

_I'm sorry. But I'd do it again. Over and over, never sorry enough to stop._

_We never have the luxury of stopping._

 

_Tiger, tiger, burning bright_  
_In the forests of the night,_  
_What immortal hand or eye_ _  
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?_

 

Shepard met Miranda's eyes, and it burned, that gaze, teeth bared and scars bright. She looked almost feral, a beast about to pounce, and it was almost impossible not to smile.

_It worked. It's her._

Miranda answered Shepard's questions, asked her own on the shuttle, but it was a formality, a process to settle her into herself. A show of checking off a list for The Illusive Man. Miranda didn't need it.

She didn't think Shepard needed it either, which had been one of the questions she hadn't had an answer to, all those late nights when she couldn't sleep.

_Even if it works, will Shepard accept it? Accept herself, accept being back?_

It was almost enough to make Miranda thank Wilson for his betrayal, for pushing them forward, for forcing Shepard to wake up under fire. It had made her decide, even before she knew there was a decision to make.

She would fight.

And the galaxy would follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Companion gift/prequel fanmix availabe on [playmoss](https://playmoss.com/en/jillyfae/playlist/seize-the-fire) / [8tracks](https://8tracks.com/faejilly/seize-the-fire) / [spotify](https://play.spotify.com/user/jillyfae/playlist/4Bo1gZHFdlRwZHI48fCAQy?play=true&utm_source=open&utm_medium=signup-test&utm_campaign=link)


End file.
